I made a comment on social media here recently, something I used to not do because I didn’t want to give people the satisfaction of an argument. But in past couple of years, I just don’t care anymore. I’ve realized that ever since Covid, the 2020 Presidential Election and Jan. 6 insurrection coup attempt, people who were once very conservative or center right have become more open-minded the way they used to be before Rush Limbaugh, talk radio and the George W. Bush Administration began a great divide in America.
Anyway, it was a video of a young woman saying she was upset her supervisors sent her a text overnight saying she had to work on her day off. You really haven’t worked a job when your supervisor or employer says non-chalantly you’re going to have to work on your day off. “Yep, fuck your plans! The company or business screwed up and didn’t hire enough people to take care of something and you have to work rather you like it or not. You can either do it or take it on the arches.”
I had to do it when I was in Americus, Ga. when the school board was interviewing superintendent candidates on a Saturday and they wanted me to basically sit outside a conference room. But the members took pity on me and were able to arrange a place for me to watch TV. This was 2001, so there were no streaming services. So, I spent six or seven hours watching TV and maybe less than an hour typing up that “The School Board met and interviewed candidates and yadda-yadda-yadda they didn’t make any decisions yet.”
So, I commented that it was important for her to take a point and take the day off. She was young and she had the rest of her life to work. She can’t really be at fault for a failure of the company. And I criticized that many states became right-to-work or at-will as more Baby Boomers elected politicians or got into office where they did away with labor unions. And boy did that cause a rouse from Boomers saying that it wasn’t their fault. Right to work has been around for decades but it really only gain traction during the Reagan-Bush Administration of the 1980s and 1990s.
Unless a bunch of people time traveled from the past or the future to elect Ronald Reagan twice and George H.W. Bush once, then I would say Boomers share a lot of the blame whether they like it or not. What we’ve seen since the late 1990s and early 2000s is more hardships on workers. It was during W.’s administration where the Labor Department begin to relax some of its restrictions making it easier for employers to stiff salaried employers.
America has never been a popular country when it comes to paying people a livable wage. Let’s not forget that people were enslaved for centuries, so people could get richer. And then, you have the fights when labor unions began to organized in the latter part of the 19th Century up until the first half of the 20th Century. Even in the post-WWII era when many Americans benefitted from labor unions, it was still hard to get some organizations going in parts of America.
Mostly, it’s because some people in the workplace are greedy. I’m not talking about supervisors or employers. I’m talking about regular blue collar workers. Everyone sees their job as important and some see it more important than others. So why should someone who does janitorial work the same as someone who works on the assembly line at a factory. Both are an intergral part to the labor work force. But the greediness comes in.
The employers pit the workers against each other. Let’s say if a janitor doesn’t pick up something and it causes a disaster on the assembly line. OSHA fines the factory. Now, the janitor seems important. But the person on the assembly line was working too hard to take care of something the janitor could get. And there’s the irony. We’re all part of a team until it comes to the pay and the positions.
Remember the scene in Cheers where Sam and Woody wanted a raise but Rebecca says she’ll give them a title instead? That’s how they get you. Will Wheaton who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation asked for a raise and he said the producers would promote him to a lieutenant on the show. He refused. If he was working on the show and others were getting raises, he deserved one too.
When I was working at the Wagoner Tribune, after being promoted to news editor, the company had actually consideration a pay scale for the editors of the other newspapers. It was never mentioned again. I’m sure some of the other editors didn’t like this and told the supervisors. Some could stomp their feets like a spoiled kid in the cereal aisle and get what they wanted. The others were expected to move mountains and pay the employers for permission to come to work. This is probably why the company had a huge turnover rate among editors, adertising representatives and others during the last three or four years I was there.
People should be paid a decent wage for the work they’re given but some of the newspapers didn’t have to do as much as others. So I guess that’s why some felt a pay scale would be beneficial to some and a rip-off to others. There was already tension following the summer of 2009 in which all employees had to undergo furloughs. This meant, people had to take five days off and not get paid. The salaried employees had to give up a week of employment. They got a vacation but no pay unless someone did something really stupid like send them a work-related text or e-mail then they were entitled to their week’s pay.
I was able to space my out to a day off over several weeks, so I took the Friday and Monday of Memorial Day Off and some time off at July 4. I hadn’t been promoted to news editor and wasn’t salaried. I later found out that during this time, the company had kept a “consultant” on staff who was a friend of one of the top dogs so he wouldn’t have any lapse in his employment. So, a lot of people gave up a week’s worth so a consultant could keep getting a paycheck. No wonder people started leaving not soon after, including my former supervisor.
But back on this comment thread, someone said that they work 52 hours a week like they’re proud of it, but also angry because they have to work that long while others don’t. That’s what the capitalist system wants. It wants us to fight. It wants us to thump our chests like gorillas saying we’re the best in the kingdom.
Yet we’re not. People get mad at people at fast food restaurants making more money than first-responders like firefighters and EMTs. But that’s not the fault of the fast food industries which are private companies. It’s the fault of the fire departments and EMS services which are usually funded through local governments. And I’d bet you a diddley-eyed Joe to a damned if I know that there’s one person at the local government office who doesn’t do near as much as a firefighter or EMT.
Yet there’s the rub. How do you make the distinction? We’re obvioiusly become a workforce that relies too much on managers and supervisors, something remote work proved during the days of the pandemic wasn’t necessary anymore. We didn’t need Bill Lumberghs walking around to cubicles to take much of our time telling us something that was unneccesary or could’ve been sent in a text or e-mail. That’s how meetings have ruined the workforce as people seem to spend more times in meetings than doing work.
It’s narcississtic to say that a fast-food worker doesn’t deserve a good pay or salary. People who work at McDonalds or Burger King have bills to pay and families to support. They say there’s no shame in flipping burgers when it comes to young people, then they shame people for flipping burgers. This is how the class warfare works. A lot of people who work in the fast food industry probably graduated high school and college. But they needed work while they searched for other jobs.
And if only teenagers should work at fast food restaurants, why are they open early in the morning to late at night. Most teenagers are in school. Someone has to work between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. And those workers deserve respect just as much as much as someone who fights fires or does CPR. All it takes is one person overlooking something because they’re swamped with work and something winds up in the food and someone’s health is at risk. Over the decades from the early days of fast food, workers have been pushed harder and harder. If they expected to make you a quarter punder and cheese and large fries in under two minutes, then maybe they need a bigger salary for more hustle.
If you don’t like it, you can always do what your parents said and eat food you have at home. I think it’s mostly because people want the ability to berate someone so they go after those in the food service or retail industry. But thankfully, management is starting to side with the workers than the Karens now. Revolutions start when the soldiers starting turning their rifles toward the generals who told them to fire on the pheasants.
We’re not there yet, but that day is coming, sooner than some expect.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 